Properly Coded: Creating Characters of Color (Part 4)

Diversity makes stories better, plain and simple. This year, we’ve partnered with the good folks at Writing With Color to get some advice on how to write stories populated with people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. In the fourth part of her sub-series “Properly Coded,” Alexa White talks about a few mistakes to avoid when writing characters of color:

We are finally making characters.

You should have an idea of their frames of reference, their backgrounds, and the world they inhabit. You should also use tools like WWC’s Research Chart to help you flesh out the character.

Except even with all that work, you’re probably still caught up in a few little things that you need to work through in order to really be respectful.

1. Cultural purity is a toxic concept 

Say it with me: cultures interacting with the modern world will grow and change to adapt to modern society, and this does not necessarily mean they are getting destroyed.

This means Natives have rules for digital content sharing and own cell phones. A Korean family might have a tradition of making bacon cheeseburgers every Friday. An Indian woman might prefer ballet to kathak. All because they have been exposed to the modern world and have taken what they like from it.

None of this means they’re “doing their culture wrong.”

Culture is an ever-growing, ever-evolving, ever-shifting thing that is highly adaptable to everything you can possibly throw at it. These societies have handled invention, innovation, technological advancement, and cultural diffusion for sometimes millennia. 

We are not museum dioramas that popped up in the 1800s that were thrust into the modern world and are frantically working on returning to “the old ways.” The problems occur when we aren’t allowed to make choices for ourselves, and our ways of life are actively getting stomped out because of assimilation. But individual people can and will take what they like from other cultures to enjoy. That is their right.

2. We’re not “on” 24/7

When you start to consume the emotional labour of people of colour, you might subconsciously start to pick up that activism is their hobby. They often dedicate a lot of time to it, complain about the isms they face on the regular, and just generally be very open about interacting with the systems that harm us.

Do not conflate “interacting and existing” with “the contents of life.”

We’re dancers. Cooks. Dog walkers. Artists. We kick back and play Minecraft at the end of a long day adjusting spreadsheets to fit our boss’ needs. Our hobbies span the same gamut as every other white person, even if (sometimes) the expression of it is different.

Despite all the differences in experience, humans have always been humans. Graffiti translated across the globe ends up looking all like the same thing; we tell jokes, cook dinner, play games, sleep, date, raise children. 

Just because we had different experiences than you, doesn’t mean we’re made of different stuff.

3. Not everyone is going to be the same kind of self-aware

Activism on the internet  often has the same sort of end point: freedom of some sort. We’re all working towards about the same goal. But not everyone is going to agree with how that looks, and what steps should be taken to reach it.

You have to be very careful writing about inter-community issues (colourism being a pretty common one), but you also have to be very careful that all your characters don’t end up sounding like the same small cluster of activists. Disagreements on the nuance of how to accomplish something happen, even among those small clusters. And if you don’t have that disagreement, everyone is going to be a cardboard cut out.

Go forth and make characters

This series was a basic toolkit to get you started at square 1. It’s not exhaustive; it’s not even that comprehensive. It is a beginning.

Keep learning. Never stop learning. Because the minute you stop is the minute you lose the plot.

Happy writing.

~Alexa

Alexa White, also known as Mod Lesya on Writing with Color, is a Mohawk two spirit person from Southern Ontario, who joined Writing with Color to help educate others. A lifelong lover of storytelling, she dedicates her focus to making characters feel like they come from whatever setting they’re supposed to exist in. If she is not found writing, she is playing with her cat, cooking, or drawing.